I've got all the alien challenges apart from Outsider (which i'm working on) and Reckoning which i don't have the characters to complete anyway. I didn't use consumables and managed them all on bronze. It's been enlightening because it's forced me to learn to use classes i wouldn't otherwise have gone near. I _can_ play as a volus now. I'm not going to because i find them annoying but i can appreciate their strenghs weaknesses and i hope how to play effectively with them on my team.

I got curious, i checked some ratings from the doc inthe first post. I've got higher achievement rankings than some of you, including josh! Very surprising to me. My gear is nowhere near as good though. Need more gear...

Josh. Which do you prefer of the valiant of the black widow? i've played both in the last week and i tend to like the black widow better though it's far too heavy at the level i've got it. I use the valiant when i need to be able to carry something else or be able to use powers more than once a wave.

I've got all the alien challenges apart from Outsider (which i'm working on) and Reckoning which i don't have the characters to complete anyway. I didn't use consumables and managed them all on bronze. It's been enlightening because it's forced me to learn to use classes i wouldn't otherwise have gone near. I _can_ play as a volus now. I'm not going to because i find them annoying but i can appreciate their strenghs weaknesses and i hope how to play effectively with them on my team.

I got curious, i checked some ratings from the doc inthe first post. I've got higher achievement rankings than some of you, including josh! Very surprising to me.

Nice!

I'm still way behind on some of the Alien Challenges, although I'm getting close. The 200 waves completed can be a real pain in the tookus. It makes sense that you're ahead on the challenges if you've completed so many of the Aliens. I think I've only got three completed, although I'm close on a few more.

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My gear is nowhere near as good though. Need more gear...

Time and level. If you got most of your waves completed on bronze, the payout is considerably less than Gold, which means less gear. If you've completed that many bronze waves, you're probably more than ready to make the jump to another level.

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Josh. Which do you prefer of the valiant of the black widow? i've played both in the last week and i tend to like the black widow better though it's far too heavy at the level i've got it. I use the valiant when i need to be able to carry something else or be able to use powers more than once a wave.

Simarlar to your preferences: I like the BW for shooting things (Soldier/Infiltrator class), whereas I sometimes carry the Valiant with Engineers and use ammo powers to set up tech bursts.

I can't wait to be done with all the challenges at least once. Then I can go back to normal mode of actually playing the way I want to. It's funny, I haven't completed a single alien challenge in its entirety but I have done at least 2/3rds of the sub challenges in nearly all of them. One of these weeks my challenge score is going to go up by a couple thousand.

Mine is similar, although I finished one (Resurgent) this week! I'm really close on Rebellion, Earth, Retaliation, and Machine. I'm nearly done with Collector mastery as well, and then I just need 88 grabs to finish Combat Mastery.

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Finished the 200k with the hornet. With a rail amp and marksman it is not half bad at killing mooks. On the quarksman, with the armor piercing mod, a rail amp and tac scan, you can not be completely worthless against elites. I am sure it would be gold acceptable if you add in an ammo power. Still, that being said, glad to be done with it. Only need to do 200k on a the graal, which will be fun.

Also finish 200 waves on my quarksman, my GI, and the huntress. The quarksman waves were a good way to grind out some of the crappier, less accurate weapons on silver, since he is consigned to that difficulty anyway.

I used the Quarksman to complete CSMG and Locust. Vulnerability VI, Targeting VI, Ammo Piercing Mods, Tac Scan +25% Damage and Marksman made short work of everything, elites included. Incredibly, the Locust was better than the CSMG on Gold.

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I hate leaving damage on the table, but I actually found myself to be more effective with my GI when I had hunter mode turned off. The vision distortion and 50% shield reduction are tough to deal with. It's not so bad if you build the piranha shotgun infiltrator since you don't have to aim really, but otherwise, I found it tougher than I remember.

I run my GI with evo6A in Hunter mode, because I felt the extra speed and extended vision was more useful to survival on the Glass Cannon build. I've toyed with the idea of dropping Hunter mode altogether and using the Geth Scanner and an Adrenaline module. It would make him a lot tougher, and the 7.5 - 17.5 damage boost you get from Hunter Mode can easily be compensated for with consumables. The range on the Geth scanner is 4m less, but Adrenaline module gives you 25% speed boost opposed to 20%.

It's kind of moot, though, since I don't have a respec card at the moment, and I don't plan on promoting the class any time soon.

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Lastly, the huntress. Oh how I love the huntress. Enjoyed every second of my 200 waves with her. Debuffs, cloak, biotic explosions, dots... I did most of my runs on collectors and she just tears them apart. Barriers just disappear when she is around.

Yeah, she's fun. I used her on some Plat runs during last weekends Op. First time I'd taken her out for a spin ...

Also, I did the raptor 200k. I can't recall who said that it was not half bad a while ago. It's not bad, at least, not as bad as I remember it to be. Could be because I took some consumables to help it pass by more quickly.

I think that was me...I was pleasantly surprised at how I wasn't miserable while playing with it through the Sniper Challenge. Never really went back to it after I completed the challenge though.

IIRC, the Raptor felt a lot like a scoped Mattock that you can't hipfire. I hated it, but I hate ALL the fast-firing semi-autos. I'm pretty good with them. For one round. After which my index finger feels like it's going to fall off.

Now that the Talon Merc is buffed, I have a choice on how to complete the Reckoning challenge, so a generation question to the community. What would be easier/funner to get: 9 more extractions with Talon Merc, or ~5 rounds with the Blood Pack Punisher? I don't really like the BPP ...

Now that the Talon Merc is buffed, I have a choice on how to complete the Reckoning challenge, so a generation question to the community. What would be easier/funner to get: 9 more extractions with Talon Merc, or ~5 rounds with the Blood Pack Punisher? I don't really like the BPP ...

Use BPP with Collector or Talon and double up for Outsider? 10 games pre-fix, Talon wasn't ... awful IMO, just a minor trial and more to do with bugginess and competing for grenades. And the last 4-5 I played with Talon to finish Outsider were post-fix and the class was actually quite fun.

Looking at your challenge status for Outsider, it looks like the best route is Collector and Talon waves, after you finish off Volus Adept and Drell Assassin.

Yeah, post-fix Talon Merc is gooooood times. But I did 200k with each weapon and it wasn't that bad for any of them. Lancer and Executioner are the standout best in the DLC, but the rest weren't unusably bad; the Spitfire's by far the worst but you can grind through 200,000 assist points (because you aren't getting kills) if you have to. Or solo a bronze and get ~70k.

Finished Council Operative today. 3 more titles, 10 promotes for BOTB. I don't think I'm going to make it but any excuse to play more Vorcha soldier and sentinel (flamer) and Geth Trooper (flamer...) those three will keep me busy.

e: no, really, always take range. You can get +power out of a ton of things including other flamer ranks, class passive, weapon attachments, consumables, gear, you name it. You can get range out of one. And it's incredibly useful no matter what class with flamer you have. Not taking it is just handicapping yourself.

Range is damage is another way to look at it. The faster you can hit someone with that flamer and start the DOT, the more damage you do.

Flamer and then a cluster grenade is an instant fire explosion plus a ton of DOT and direct damage from the powers themselves.

Use your dodge a lot and your bloodlust for survivability.

Geth Trooper has more powerful flamer if you max out fortification and hunter mode (which you should) but is a bit trickier to learn. Another reason to take range is that you can use right hand advantage behind cover in a LOT more places with the extended flamer range vs the shorter one.

Am I just hallucinating, or does it seem like there's a kindler, gentler RNG since the last update? Perhaps the fact that I just picked up a Valiant IX out of a Spectre pack ... but no, I've gotten a lot of UR drops in the last week, as well.

Maybe it's just a string of luck, which I just jinxed by bringing it up.

I'm almost done with Machinist, then I just have Outsider and Lone Wolf to barrel through. Lone Wolf being the most tedious of the challenges, if for no other reason than the following. Sync kill Wave 11 of Silver solo with GI. Solid session down the drain because I missed the second Banshee up my arse. D'oh!

e: no, really, always take range. You can get +power out of a ton of things including other flamer ranks, class passive, weapon attachments, consumables, gear, you name it. You can get range out of one. And it's incredibly useful no matter what class with flamer you have. Not taking it is just handicapping yourself.

Range is damage is another way to look at it. The faster you can hit someone with that flamer and start the DOT, the more damage you do.

I tend to favor the opposite perspective - almost any attack form that gives you the option for range has plenty of range already IMO, so I don't feel like I'm getting much of a benefit. Whatever floats your boat really, but I like the extra damage kick, even with consumables on top of it.

Meters, not feet ... anyway, it's the difference between ~1300 and ~1400 dps against armor (and 580/640 on everything else, i.e. barely noticeable) on my Trooper setup. Not relevant on any difficulty below gold and on gold and plat, a 5/3 trooper is so squishy cover and range have real and practical effects.

also again, range is damage - if I can start my burn and get 1-2 ticks before you could with the similar build (and yes, you can) I get an extra 2600 damage before you even start. A difference of ~100 dps won't really matter because even the full duration flamer burn isn't going to make that up.

what I'm saying is, if you like doing maximum damage with flamer, you're taking the wrong evolution from both a theorycrafting and practical standpoint.

It's funny, one of the first challenges I completed and actually had a lot of fun doing was Lone Wolf. It's a real test of your abilities as long as you don't do a Kroguard geth run. Not that it doesn't require any skill, but it certainly requires less. You have to min-max your character, take the right consumables for the right enemy, pick the right map. It requires a little bit more effort. It's a great challenge in my opinion.

Started on 10 Extractions with a Volus Engineer. Volus w/PUGs seems to be difficult ... these guys I was playing with scattered like the wind and I couldn't keep up with where they were on the map to keep them alive. They also liked to run to the opposite corner of the map from wherever I'd place the recon mine. Maybe they thought it was a bomb, or something.

I've only used Volus Engineer and Volus Adept, but between the two I find the Engineer to be actually usable in PUGs. Sure, it's better to use debuffs and shield boost to assist your team, but they do enough damage on their own (especially paired with an ammo power) that you can handle things yourself. On Silver at least.

I just completed my volus' 200 waves each for outsider and i had the same problem to start with Josh. Shield boost didn't seem all that great when i got cornered. I ended up going with an arc pistol for charged headshot carnage and one of a few smg's for close range "oh shit run away!" situations. I didn't score as well as i do with other classes but i was hitting top in a few games by the time i finished.

I need 35 more, going to take a while. And another 125 over cover grabs, whoever thought 250 was a good number was insane. I've completed almost everything else that doesn't require gold or soloing and i still haven't even got half way on OCG's.

I need 35 more, going to take a while. And another 125 over cover grabs, whoever thought 250 was a good number was insane. I've completed almost everything else that doesn't require gold or soloing and i still haven't even got half way on OCG's.

I think I'm at 162. Haven't gotten any for a while, because of the challenges I've been working on. I've always found that soloing Vancouver leads to lots of grabs, though. If you're interested in the Lone Wolf challenge, that might be a good way to tackle it.

I have a difficult time completing some of these challenges, because I don't like playing Bronze and Silver, and that's the most optimal way to complete many of them. I feels a little like cheating to drop down one or two levels ... I like looking at my Achievements chart knowing that I got them all playing on Gold or Platinum. Except for the points that came out of the occasional weekend Op which lent itself to a Bronze Solo.

Second time I got Dog of War, I somehow managed to get all my over cover grabs before getting Melee damage 3, just by obsessively doing grabs every chance I got. Most memorable was once I ran in between two Banshees to grab the Marauder between them.

Grabs on Gold are much harder to do, simply because you can't afford to take as many reckless chances as that one. I avoid Bronze unless there's a good reason to, but with all the character promotions, there's plenty of time to play on Silver.

Yeah the only way to get 250 grabs is to be on the lookout for them literally every single game you play. Find good grab spots and manipulate enemies into them and just do it. All the grabs, always.

I got several dozen doing my kroguard geth solos, so if all else fails you can, with a little patience, grab farm most of the first three waves and then do the occasional one later - keeping in mind grabs didn't seem to fuel Krogan rage mode, so don't be too extensive about them to the extent of dying.

So many low N7 rankings popping into Gold of late. Normally I don't judge without looking at weapons though.

<Rant>I'm sorry N7-132 Demolisher ... just being level 20 and a Demolisher is not enough in Gold, you'll need something a little better than a Predator V and Avenger VII. Excellent weapons can sometimes make up for being lower level, but the converse is usually not true when dealing with a gun class.

And, no Mr. N7-155 GI, having a Javelin I does not automatically mean you will be effective in any way, seeing as you're missing 3 out of every 4 shots. Oh, and that magical power Overload? I don't know why you skipped it, but seeing as it was a Geth match, it would have been bloody useful.

And Mr. T.Ghost, I grant that the Spitfire is a spiffy weapon, but you should not be grinding points with it like that, despite your stimpacks and having 0 competition for grenades, I still had to revive you at least 8 times and your setup was barely tickling most enemies, as demonstrated by the fact that I attacked the same pack, and killed all 6, and finished by killing your first target last.

So yeah, fortunately I was doing hard set Geth/<specific map> for Nomad waves with the Kroguard because I just knew I would get screwed by randoms. ~160K pts vs next closes at 70K and the other two under 40K. To be fair, I did do almost the first 3 waves alone and the two last place guys came in around the middle of W4 ... I got a 15 revive medal out of that match. I kinda with they had multipliers on those (like "Awarded xTimes"), because I think I was nearing 30 revives.

Two solo Silvers and two Gold left. Tried a Gold AIU Vancouver/Geth and just didn't have enough DPS against Primes to succeed. Made it to Wave 8 and then missed a combat drone, wasn't in Repair Matrix and was out of Gel.

I'm thinking that I may have a better time just accepting a boring Melee hour long blitz with a Kroguard, or perhaps trying a CQC Flame-athon with a Vorcha Sentinel on a small map like Glacier, where there are plenty of corners to prevent getting hit by stray Siege pulses.

The lesson has been I definitely have enough skill to solo Silver, but I have much to learn before I could carry a Gold match on my own if all other teammates jettison. Also, this is definitely the most boring challenge of all of them for me. If I didn't just want the Best of the Best so I can move on and play through my ever-growing backlog, I'd probably just forget about it.